[DannyBee]

I'm on 3 of our hiring committees, and i've been at google for over 6 years. It hasn't been invite only for as long i've been here, AFAIK. Either that, or I was secretly invited!

It is irrelevant whether it's an honor, but as to whether it gives you insight, you are generally right but you did miss an important point:

The vast majority of people who are "members" of a given hiring committee often don't show up every week. A lot, in fact, show up never, but are still members. (for example, they were part of it years ago and nobody removed them, they got asked, said yes, never actually did anything, etc)

So while you are correct that it does give you some insight if you actively participated, simply being a "member" of a hiring committee is a necessary but not sufficient condition to say that you have that insight.

[incision]

That doesn't seem to be a point missed so much as one that's obvious and generally unnecessary to state fully qualified descriptions of everything in casual conversation.

[DannyBee]

Except that when you are using it as marketing in a book, there are very important distinctions.

Lies of omission and all that.

[glaak]

A lie of omission would apply if you state a selection of true facts and ignore other ones so as to make yourself look better than you are.

In this case, I'm stating that I was a hiring committee member and not saying that I attended regularly, when I in fact did. This is not a lie of omission. At worst, you could accuse me of not offering additional qualifications.